Drift
by 94stars
Summary: The chances of getting out of this alive are none.
1. Drift

**Author's Note:****  
**I refuse to believe any movie that just lets George Clooney die that easily.

I'm surprised that there aren't too many stories in the _Gravity_ archive that explain what happened to Matt after he detached himself from Ryan. Oh, well. I guess I'll be the first.

Honestly, I didn't care for too much for _Gravity_.  
But I do love everything about outer space. I wanted this to realistically follow the movie's logic, thus, it's going to address a few things about space, the ISS, NASA, the ESA, and astronauts in general that Alfonso Cuarón glazed over a little bit during _Gravity_.

A more detailed summary, and a couple of trailers for this FanFiction are also on my Profile page.

I will try to update this story whenever I can. I have many other FanFiction projects to work on, but please let me know what you think! I appreciate the feedback. Enjoy.

* * *

_The odds of becoming an astronaut are 13,200,000 to 1._

_The odds of being killed in an airplane crash are 11,000,000 to 1._

_The odds of being killed sometime next year in any transportation accident: 77 to 1._

_The odds of being killed as an astronaut:_

_25 to 1._

**DRIFT**

* * *

_August 28th, 2013_  
_249 miles above Earth  
-223° F  
Psi: 0.0019_  
_Coordinates: 24°15'14.78" N, by 63°56'58.58" E_  
_9:16 PM, United States ET_

* * *

Matthew Kowalski drifted silently in space. He was a white speck on black. It wasn't any kind of black that existed on earth. This black was strange. Endless. It was the very definition of nothing. It bored into depths unseen by human beings.

He had never beheld anything like it.

Matt looked out from within his suit. He glanced down at his watch. The face of it read _9:16_.

It had been officially ten minutes since he had detached himself from Dr. Stone.

Matt stared across the Void, thinking about her.

He had just committed suicide. He had given up his own life, to save hers. It was the best thing he could have done at the moment. Yes, it was unfortunate, but he wouldn't have had it any other way. No matter how distraught it had made her, she was safe… which was all that mattered.

The soothing sounds of Hank Williams Jr. ruffled in Matt's suit. He reached for his chest-module, twisting the knob to turn him off. He didn't feel like listening to his favorite guy anymore. He was ten minutes short of... breaking Anatoly's record.

He glanced out from his helmet... stretching his gaze across the Void. Space stared back. It wasn't dark. Being inside of a room with the light off was dark… closing the insides your eyelids was dark. This was black.

No light. No sound. It sat in stoic silence… like it knew something you didn't know. Nothing looked back at you from within it... and he was heading further into it.

Mat floated, a silent dot over the earth. The planet rested below in overwhelming splendor. It was a wall of blue stucco, with green and tan patches of land, all coexisting underneath a sky of twirling, white clouds. Down there, countless people were dying. Most people think that they'll end up in a car crash, or get some terminal illness just before they die. Never do they think of the possibility of being stranded out here in space.

Matt's pupils went up to read his levels.

_O2 down to 1%._

In the next sixty seconds, he was going to take this story to his icy grave.

Anatoly would be so proud.

A clink and hiss went off in Matt's suit, alerting him. A small beep emitted from his visor. Matt stole a glance up. The letters _SOP_ blinked red.

SOP. Secondary Oxygen Pack.

Matt stared at the figures.

Ah... right.

It was only up until this very moment that he had remembered this feature. The Secondary Oxygen System system automatically kicked in when an astronaut's Primary Life Support System dropped too low. It gave an astronaut 30% more oxygen—another thoughtful token, courtesy of NASA.***** However, there was no point. There was no hope of rescue, and no way to get back to the International Space Station. Hope in this situation could never thrive, nor grow... just like any other sort of life that dared to flourish out here.

Matt's eyes bore into his visor screen. They were fixed on the blinking letters in front of him: _O2 down to 30%._ Those numbers only signified that he had thirty minutes left to live. The readings continued to beep... the seconds he had left on his watch limped painfully onward... slowly dying before him.

_Tick._

Matt exhaled. White met with his polyurethane helmet, like a frosty breath upon a window on a winter night.

_Tick._

Matt released another cold breath, his visor turning white again... the white faded... came back again.

Darkness ruled over most of Matt's face. The only source of light that was strewn over him was the hazy green of his visor readings. Matt's eyes seared out of his helmet, staring at the Void.

It stared back... with nothing to offer him. Nothing to help him get back home.

Matt's gaze ventured out further... straining to see past this universe... and entered into the next world beyond this one.

The next universe made eye contact with him. It stared at Matt... unwelcomingly, for he was a foreigner in its domain.

Matt's eyes did not move. The next world smiled back at him. It spoke.

_You're going to die_.

Matt blinked.

He could imagine it. It was a voice so cold, so devoid of human feeling. Something moved around inside of his gut like a furry little animal, burrowing around to find a safe place to hide from a predator.

This place—this incalcuable, ancient place—knew that he was going to die. Almost as if the Void itself was a highly intelligent creature all its own. It was very aware... and very pleased with Matt's sacrificial death. This place was waiting for him to expire... so that it could have his crystallized, frozen body for… God knows what.

Matt shut his eyes.

A man should never be alone with his thoughts. It was the most dangerous thing in the world.

But his sacrifical death meant something to someone. If this was the price he had to pay for Dr. Stone's life, so be it. He was fine with that... he just needed to learn to accept the fact that he was going to become just another piece of satellite debris orbiting the Earth.

Orbit.

And then, a single, solitary speck of an idea sank into Kowalski's head. His face lit up. His eyebrows joined together… his face forming into something serious.

_Orbit_…

Matt turned in his space suit. His eyes bared anxious curiosity—and reflected the eternal darkness of space.

The ISS would be coming back. It did every ninety minutes. Every ninety minutes, the ISS came back, along with that killer Russian satellite debris. Matt had missed his first opportunity to board the station with Ryan only a few minutes ago. But what if… what _if...?_

Matt closed his eyes to chalk up a quick equation.

He had already spent ten minutes floating around up here.

Alright, 90 minus 10 equalled 80.

Thus, the ISS would be coming back in eighty minutes.

If Matt had 30% oxygen left, he'd have thirty minutes left to live, since an astronaut's O2 level was the same as the amount of minutes it had before it ran out.

If he had 80%, he'd have…

Eighty minutes.

And then it hit him. Matt's eyes tore open.

He could make it. He could actually do this... if...

It was crazy... it was outrageous... it was such a simple notion, it border lined on genius.

He didn't use his oxygen.

Matt furrowed his eyebrows, letting this this germinating seed of crazy innovation grow. If he discontinued his emergency oxygen, he should have been able to add_ fifty spare_ _minutes_ to the remaining thirty he already had. That is, if he could hold off on oxygen for two minutes—forty times.

Fifty plus thirty… made eighty percent oxygen... just enough to have for eighty minutes.

He had Harvard to thank for pounding this much arithmetic into his head. He was so clever sometimes he thought he should just date himself.

Matt looked up at his levels.

_O2 down to 29%._

Matt stared at his visor. The red figures in front of him continued to blink. _29%_. _29%_. He had lost 1%.

Matt's eyes began to wander.

This was wishful thinking. The chances of getting out of this alive are none. Only a fool at the end of his fraying rope would consider _holding your breath_ as a reliable alternative to save you.

Matt's eyes dropped, and he turned over his wrist to view the face of his watch. The second hand was slowly inching its way to the top of the twelve. One silent tick. Another silent tick.

It was a steel harbinger of certain death that was sure to come.

Matt's dark eyes came up. He stared.

Would this be crazy enough to work?

He didn't have time to think about the reliability of his idea. He didn't have time to contemplate the most plausible outcome. Every second he spent thinking about it, he wasted by not _doing it_. He had to stop breathing—now.

Matt inhaled.

He took in a deep sip, filling every crack and crevice in his lungs. He could feel them expanding to their limit, and then he held.

Everything went silent. The lonely call of space grew just a little louder. Matt then realized just how much he had taken the sound of his own breathing for granted. All throughout the STS-157 mission, it had been a constant reminder to him that something lived out here.

Matthew reached up to his chest, and flipped Hank Williams Jr. back on.

* * *

All of mankind sat below. Every soul, completely exposed. It was early morning in New Delhi, and the second half of the globe was cloaked in darkness. The earth sat and rotated in a blue glow.

Matt drifted. His first session of holding his breath was almost up, and the skin of his lungs were as tight as a drum. He closed his eyes… pried them open. It was like high school Varsity swim team all over again... amazing how something so trivial would help in his career at NASA.

Matt blinked, and then noticed his home planet before him.

It turned in silence. Matt took a moment to look down at one part of the world. The sun was coming up over Pakistan. The jagged mountainside lit up, and casted shadows over the deep valleys and gorges. Matt looked at another part of the world. In the Himalayas, the sun hit the frost-covered mountains in a light orange. If anyone was scaling Mount Everest this morning, the sunrise would have been fantastic for them.

Matt's eyes were glass. The globe turned upon his polyurethane helmet. It was mid-day in China… the busiest and most populated place in the world.

What did the people of China do at this hour?

Matt thought. Different, made-up people came into his mind. They were busy running to work... listening to traffic reports… meeting up with friends… falling in love. Maybe there was even someone who was looking up at the sky, observing the weather, or noticing a hazy moon on one of those rare occasions that it came out during the daytime. Perhaps they were taking a moment capture this strange occasion... appreciating anything else that was up there, and wondering about anything else that laid beyond the earth's atmosphere.

Matt wanted to hug that person.

He lifted his arm, checking his watch. His first session of holding his breath was almost up. The second hand hit the number twelve and marked two minutes. He could breathe again.

Matt released a rush of air, causing his helmet to flare white. His heart beat a little faster, blood rushing through his veins to warm them up. As Matt took a minute to recover, he stole a glance up at his readings.

_O2: 29%._

His O2 supply had held on for an extra two minutes.

Excellent.

Matt turned his wrist, checking his watch again. The second hand had reached the next whole number. He inhaled. He filled his lungs with fresh oxygen until they were about ready to tear apart, and then held. And waited.

Matt lifted his eyes away from the Earth, letting them trek across the solar system. His pupils roved around in the darkness, peering into the depths of nothing. The frightful black eye of space stared back.

The Void watched him... waiting... waiting for something...

Matt's radio whined in and out. Hank Williams Jr.'s voice coiled and recoiled, becoming choppy.

"…_Onder where you arr…_"

Static crackled.

Matt blinked, visibly vexed. Now what?

"…_Copy…_"

Matt's face softened.

Something moved inside of him. It was the primitive drive of survival.

Was that…?

"_Matt, this is Ryan, copy?_"

It was.

Matt's eyes glistened; the reflection of earth lay thin on his helmet. They had reestablished contact.

Matt started to open his mouth... but he caught himself.

No.

Matt's expression tightened in dismay. He gave up his view of the Earth, and surrendered his eyes once more to the darkness surrounding him.

No, please... not now...

Ryan's voice popped and fizzed over the whining transmission.

"…_I made it… I'm here…_" Ryan said over the static,"_…On the station… do you copy?_"

Something pounded against Matt's chest, hindering his speech. He heisitated... unsure what to do. He couldn't figure out if this rush of adrenaline was the sudden hope of a potential rescue, or just hearing the sound of Ryan's voice again.

Matt's mouth closed, tightening up. In order to copy, he needed to speak… which released oxygen.

"_Come on, Matt, talk to me..._" Ryan said over the radio. "_Tell me where you are, give me your position. Where are you? Give me a visual, just tell me what you see._"

Matt's gaze was fixed on nothing in particular. His eyes sat dead. He came out of it, beginning to turn inside of his suit... gazing down below.

The Earth turned. Seven billion below went about their day... oblivious to the situation that was just above their heads.

"_Oh,_ _come on_," Ryan said. "_You've been yammering since we left Cape Canaveral, now you decide to shut up?_"

Silence.

Matt closed his eyes. She probably thought that the worst, comprehensible thing had happened to him. His gut twisted. There were no words to describe just how guilty he felt for helping Ryan to believe that...

"_Talk to me," _Ryan said._ "Just say something, say anything, I don't care!_"

It could have been the faulty transmission... but something in her voice was cracking. It caught Matt's attention. It almost tempted him to give in. He paused, wanting to listen to more of it.

It made him feel... like he mattered.

His glance rolled away.

He wanted to say something to calm her down. He wanted to tell her to keep it together, to keep her head on... not to worry about him... to tell her that she was going to be alright. But that would have its own consequences. If he breathed a single word back to her, Ryan would immediately jump at the first opportunity to come back for him... and her one shot at survival would have gone right down the drain. That was not about to happen on Matt's watch. They both didn't have the time—or the resources to do this together anymore.

Matt blinked, pained. He reached upward...

And flicked his radio off.

The purest of all silences came in between them. Matt looked up, and gave Ryan a gaze across the Void. He copied back to her in his head.

_Can't_. _Wish I could._

There was an undiluted, crystal-clear silence. In that moment, Matt began to understand the lonely ache that reigned within the universe just a little bit better. His radio crackled. Hank Williams Jr.'s guitar whined back in.

"_That lonesome whippoorwill… he sounds too blue to fly… I'm so lonesome I could cry."_

Even though his country music had come back on, the Void remained ever silent. It was a deathly silence. It was a silence that could be deeply treasured, for those who truly sought it... or deeply feared.

This type of silence could make a man wonder just how much of it should be taken in. If he wasn't careful, he would soon want to hear something… _anything_ else other than this silent roar. And when the Void would not grant his request, he would slowly start to unwind, and beg for the darkness to communicate with him… plead for the Void to send him a noise… even if it wasn't from a human being. A rock, a piece of satellite debris, _something_. Something to reassure him that he wasn't alone in this universe. But the horrible, sad truth was—he was.

Matt then looked up, realizing the full scope of what he had just done. Hank Williams Jr. yodeled in his ears, but he couldn't hear it.

He had just said no to help. His country music gradually became noise to him. It grew colder, and colder. The Void bore unspeakable darkness into his body, and Matt could feel it grinning all around him.

He was all alone, now.

* * *

*****The Secondary Oxygen Pack (SOP) is a real feature used by NASA to give an astronaut 30 more minutes of oxygen when the Primary Life Support System drops too low.  
Feel free to look up "Secondary Oxygen Pack" on a search engine to read more about it. Please leave a Review!


	2. Debris

**Author's Note:**  
The more suspenseful part of this Chapter was written to the piece, "_Parachute_" from the _Gravity_ soundtrack. I highly recommend listening to it after the 6 minute mark if you want the full effect of this Chapter. Enjoy.

* * *

_August 28th, 2013  
248 miles above Earth  
-239 °F  
__Psi: 0.0019_  
_Coordinates: 15°11'06.82" N, by 22°00'21.66" E  
10:23 PM, United States ET_

* * *

Matt had been looking into his mirror to pass time during his oxygen conservation sessions. He rolled over his wrist. A couple of stars gleamed back at him, like lost diamonds floating amidst a black sea. Matt moved his wrist back and forth. Back… forth.

It wasn't watching NASCAR, but it was something to do—just to get his mind off of his current situation. It helped, but it was beginning to grow stale.

Matt parted his gaze from his mirror. He stared ahead.

Blackness stared back at him. It pierced through his body with such a perfect mystiousness that no human was meant to understand.

Matt would never wish this kind of silence to anyone on earth. This place was too lonely. Too dark. Too… off.

Matt looked up, his eyes roving outer space for something. The stars glared at him.

There was something about them that didn't make them seem so beautiful anymore if you stared at them long enough. They were all like eyes, glowing millions of light years away. It felt like they were watching him.

Matt's eyes waded harder through the black abyss... his eyes growing darker with every turn. His gaze crept up to a mass scatter of stars. As the burning white specks stared at him, and as he stared back... Matt came to a resolute realization: something else was out here.

It was something that lived inside of networks and networks of computers. It was something that hid in the back corner of everyone's minds. Everyone knew it existed. They felt it. They sensed it. But no one ever admits it. It was like one of those old movies where the hero knew that someone was behind them... watching him. He could feel their eyes on his back, and as the music in the background begins to grow, telling the hero to look behind him, look behind him… the hero turns around… and the person in question is not there.

But nothing was out here. Nothing except Matt, and presumably Ryan. He knew better. Life in space was impossible. There was no thing watching him.

_There is_, a cold voice said.

Matt blinked.

The temperature inside of his suit plummeted... and icy pearls shot through his blood.

Where had _that_ come from?

Matt's eyes hardened, something bitter flickering inside of him. He had recognized this voice from earlier.

_...Or maybe that's just my imagination talking whack_, the other half of him spat back.

But that did not silence the voice. It spoke again.

'Maybe'_ it's your imagination?_ it said._ It sounds like you're not quite convinced yourself._

Matt stared.

How could anyone posses such a voice like this inside of them?

Matt shut his eyes... and two words seeped into his head.

_Zip it._

Silence.

The voice left him alone... but it stayed, lingering somewhere in his mind for next time.

Matt clenched his jaw and opened his eyes... glaring darkly into nothing.

He was arguing with himself... up here, without a soul in sight for the next thousand miles. This is what crazy people do. Talk to themselves. But Matthew Kowalsky didn't have time to go crazy right now. No, sir, he had much more important things to do. He had to keep it together... just keep it together... because a good commander always keeps it together. Even in situations where he had every right to break down.

Matt felt another minute coming to a close. He raised his wrist, checking his watch.

_10:23_.

It was also going on eight-thirty in Dallas right now... his hometown.

The sky was always taken for granted in Texas. It was the best type of sky to stargaze under. It held the window to look into the next universe.

Matt could still remember one night where he sat underneath it in his father's '73 pickup. He was with one of his first girlfriends... Jennifer Fairfield. She and him sat on the tailgate, their arms wrapped around their knees. They stared up into the depths of space.

"Matt, it's been an hour, my butt is sore, and I don't see anything. Can we go back inside now?"

"Keep looking."

Jen sighed. She looked up and skimmed the stars, as if searching for something hidden up in the heavens. The lonely hum of crickets rang in the air. Matt gazed up and pointed.

"That one is called Alnitak. It's supposed to be bigger and brighter than our sun. It's a part of the Orion—or Horsehead nebula. You like horses, right?"

"Ugh!"

Jen lolled her head, and fell back into Matt's chest. Matt looked down.

"Oh, that hurts..."

Jen lifted her head up.

"Matt, can we talk about something that's not related to outer space?"

"Sure, no problem. We can talk about… your hair. I think the only reason why there's a clear sky tonight is because you burned up the Ozone layer with your hairspray."

"Uh-huh… very funny."

"C'mon, babe. Please try to show some respect. Most people don't appreciate this."

Jen threw out a sigh. She scootched up a little straighter.

And then, Matt exploded with glee. He shot up and stood on the tailgate, pointing his finger heavenward.

"_THERE!_ There, there!"

Jen gazed up, the wind beginning to gather in her flyaways. She locked her eyes on the black vastness of space. A white speck shot across the sky. Another one followed. Soon, hundreds of white flecks gathered speed in the same direction, and were flung across the heavens like a silent hailstorm.

Matt and Jen kept looking up. The meteors flew over their heads. They eventually slowed down, and came to an innocent stop. Jen and Matt didn't say anything for a while. They sat together in silence, and kept looking up somewhere together.

It was a night that was buried away in his memories. Matt hadn't thought about that night in years. Their relationship didn't last... like all high school romances. She and him had went their separate ways. They both shared different interests.

Matt looked down at his wrist, examining his mirror.

Maybe there was something wrong with him—if not psychotic—for wanting to be an astronaut. He could have been a dentist… or an insurance agent. But no. It had to be astronaut for some reason.

A mysterious dot in his mirror twinkled at him, and then gave out. Matt settled his attention on it. It gleamed at him again, and then it gave out. It was twirling. It was behind him, heading in his direction.

Matt turned.

His eyes contracted, and the reflection of the object twinkled in his dark irises.

The debris.

Matt let go of his breath and burst into his communications assembly.

"Houston, Houston in the blind, this is Commander Matt Kowal—"

He didn't finish his sentence.

A piece of debris the size of a Boeing 777, twirled in mid-air, slammed against a larger piece of debris, and split it in half. It exploded into a million, sparkling bits. Shrapnel flailed through space.

A silver dot zipped past him. Matt turned to watch it. It barreled into oblivion. Another metal scrap shot past him, fleeing to the edge of the universe. Matt turned around again and spoke. He put on a frustrated smirk.

"Ah, nevermind Houston…!" he said. "Call back and leave a message if you get this..."

Matt signed off, and then turned to eye the collection of debris before him. A wave of silver specks tumbled their way through the cosmos, and among them, was a large white one. The International Space Station. It soared like an oversized dragonfly, sailing faster and faster at 17,000 miles an hour.

Matt looked up in his helmet to check his readings.

_O2 down to 1%._

This was going to be down to the wire.

Some hesitation lingered in the back of Matt's mind. The International Space Station looked bigger the last time he saw it. But Matt shoved all hints of doubt to the back of his head. He didn't have time for that.

Five-hundred yards away:

The International Space Station glided faster. Faster.

Matt stared it down.

Four-hundred yards. It looked like it was gaining an angry amount of speed as it approached him. Or maybe that was just Matt.

Three-hundred yards.

Two-hundred yards.

Matt didn't dare blink.

One-hundred yards.

It was here.

It hit him with a bone-crunching _thud_.

Matt yelled, and he was tossed up into space.

The ISS cruised on, a graceful giant sailing past him.

His head surged. Instructions pounded through his head.

_Grab something, grab something._

The station flew by in a lithe, smooth orbit. Hank Williams Jr. sang away.

_"Did you ever see a robin weep, when leaves begin to die?"_

Matt flung out a hand, reaching for a steel bar. He grabbed it. But it slipped out of his fist.

"R'AGH!"

_"It means he's lost the will to live..."_

Matt's ribs rammed against the station's solar panels. He bounced up, then came crashing down. He reached out in a vain attempt to grab something. He was sliding at hundreds of miles an hour. It was like sliding down the side of a skyscraper and trying to grab onto the glass windows while using only your winter gloves.

"Argggah!"

Matt toppled through space. The Void watched the entire time.

The space station rattled onward, knocking Matt around on the solar panels. He heaved air in and out of his lungs. His boot skidded along the panel underneath him, and it flipped him head over heels. He tumbled over... and over. He threw out a few yells, muffled rumbling pulsing through his suit. He barrelled upside-down and reached up, pushing his hands up on the panel to stay in place.

Through his helmet, foggy, scratchy images shot past him. Red and white stripes, silver bars, white bolts, copper foil, black panels. Familiar station modules tore past him… _Harmony... Columbus_. They all soared past, falling further and further behind—bidding him farewell. It would be the last time he would ever see them again if he did not make it. He had to grab something—_anything_ on this blasted satellite.

A parachute cord slithered aimlessly past him. He considered, but he shot past. Missed.

A white bar hit his knee—and a waft of deployed parachute skirt flew into his helmet. It lifted up and away once Matt flew through it.

He was slowing down—losing momentum. Matt began to twirl rather than spin. The end of the station grew ominously near.

Nearer.

This wasn't going to happen. This couldn't happen.

Matt kicked, trying to gain momentum again. He turned, circling around and around. The International Space Station roared past him. It flew onward... onward…

It was going to happen.

The space station parted from him.

Matt rotated right-side up... exploding into a loss of composure, once he saw how far it had gotten.

"No, NO, _NO!_"

His screams were all in vain.

The International Space Station... his one chance at survival... had left him.

It spared no sympathy because it was a machine... and the only reason why it was here was to continue its lonely orbit four-hundred kilometers above the Earth. It soared gracefully over the Pacific ocean, showing Matt the taillights.

Matt rotated. He felt his brain begin to scramble for answers as to why there wasn't more oxygen. It was getting strenuous to breathe.

Matt huffed, puffed; fighting for breath. Never, in all of his career at NASA, had it ever gotten this bad before. Nothing was coming into his lungs. He was taking in more oxygen than what was left in his suit. He knew that. He tried to stop, but he couldn't. It felt like he would suffer from bodily harm if he did.

His heartbeats were not quiet. They hammered against the inside of his flesh, fighting to escape bodily imprisonment.

Matt looked up, burning a hole through his visor. Those horrific numbers froze on the screen before him.

_O2 down to 0%._

The panic did not kick in right away. It was slow, tantalizing… like when a fly gets caught up in a spider's web. The fly knows that its situation is unfortunate, but it is until the fly actually _sees _the spider coming down to greet him—the one who will deliver its ultimate demise—does the fly realize how bad its situation had just gotten.

Matt closed his eyes.

_Keep it together... just keep it together._

And then—one of the biggest, core-cracking impacts that had ever distressed the astronaut, exploded into his back—and was thrown forward.

Matthew Kowalski flung across the universe.

He yelled... and the Void watched.

Everything stopped. Darkness bloomed in front of his eyes like black roses. The veins behind his ears throbbed... the sound of his slowly decreasing heartbeat chomping down on them, a sound so crystal-clear.

_Thud, thud. Thud. Thud._

_Thud._

Everything roared back to life when he hit the International Space Station.

"AH!"

He had caught up to the ISS. His stomach slammed down on the Japanese Experiment Module, and he pinwheeled off to the side. It felt like a truck had just greeted his side.

Matt grunted, straining to keep his expressions of torment to himself. He was spinning. Something exploded out of his back. It introduced itself with a large hiss. Something blinked furiously at Matt. He looked up.

_14.0 psi. 13.2 psi. 12.6 psi._

His numbers, his numbers were dropping, why?

Matt shut his eyes... heaving his lungs in and out for the last scraps of air he had left in his suit. Everything was falling apart.

He stretched out a white glove, palm out and open... hoping that something—some _thing_—would cross paths with it in the abundance of chaos happening around him.

He kept his eyes shut, with one word searing through his body the entire time.

_Please._

And just like that, a gray tether clinked into his knuckle.

Matt's lids ripped open.

He snatched it, fastening both hands onto it. The tether jerked outward, the slack tightening... but Matthew Kowalsky did not let go. He had a hold of something.

Matt smiled half-heartedly.

But the tether—his lifeline—skidded a few inches out of his glove. Matt's smile vanished.

He held on ever tighter.

The tether skidded another inch... two inches outward.

The astronaut's gloves were too thick. His fists were resisting to properly clasp around the tether. It was like trying to close your fingers once they had bared a cold winter day without protection... nearly impossible.

The slack at the end of the tether snaked around Matt's arm, deciding to fool around with him. Matt violently seized it in a fit of anger. It cooperated this time, and stayed firm in his grasp.

Matt looked up towards his lifeline's destination.

It led up to the Quest airlock.

Matt extended a white glove and climbed up. It was humid inside of his helmet. He climbed up. Left, right until he came up to the airlock door. He grabbed the doorway latch. But then he paused.

He couldn't figure out what to do next.

Something erupted into a violent, silent explosion behind him, shrapnel flinging every which way like enormous razors. Matt keeled over. He was light-headed. Ink spots blotted around his field of vision, the life beginning to get sucked out of him. His blood flow began to take a more leisurely stroll throughout his body.

Matt was using every part of his body to breath, now. His arms, his stomach. It was so difficult to think. He slammed a frustrated fist into wall of the Quest airlock—four inches away from oxygen.

Something then spoke to him. Not the cold voice, but something deep inside of him. Something that was not afraid and had not been affected by the oxygen deprivation.

_Focus._

The satellite debris ripped through the ISS like shattered glass to a piece of fabric. Matt wanted to stop and sleep more than anything. He fought against every blistering fiber within him that protested against his efforts, and pried the door open to the space station. The hatch lifted up, and then sealed back shut again.

One heave wasn't enough. There wasn't enough strength in his arm to get the door open.

The thing deep inside of him spoke again.

_Yes, there is. Yes, there is._

Matt's eyeballs were reeling. He shut them tight. He gathered every resourceful drop of strength he had left in him, and ripped the door away from the ISS to the point where his muscles went into shock, and threatened to give out if he ever bestowed this much abuse upon them ever again.

He gave a primal shout. Pulling, and pulling, it swung all the way open. It shot out, almost tossing Matt back into the death trap blowing up around him, but he reacted quickly, and gripped the latch handle hard enough for it to fuse into his hand.

Another chain of explosions blew up behind him, a horrific red and amber. Metal scraps zipped across the Void in arbitrary directions, starving to reign terror elsewhere.

Matt kicked his legs around, positioning himself horizontal. He slipped inside, feet first.

He gripped onto the inner handle, and reeled it in, sucking every bit of outer space back outside where it belonged. The hatch slammed shut.

Matt made it to the International Space Station.


	3. The ISS

**Author's Note:**

I apologize for posting Chapter 3 a day after my deadline. I just had so much to do yesterday, I couldn't get this Chapter done in time.  
I take my deadlines very seriously, so I'll try to never have it happen again.

Reviews welcome.

* * *

_August 28th, 2013  
Quest Joint Airlock, 250 miles above Earth  
-20° F  
0.0044 psi  
Coordinates: __16__39'36.64" N, by 39__21'01.00" E__  
10:41 PM, United States EST_

* * *

Screaming alarms. Everywhere.

Matt cranked the handle on the hatch door and sealed it tight. Round and round it went, and then it stopped. He turned, lost eyes roaming the cabin.

Two things. He only had to do two things: pressurize the airlock, and let in oxygen. This would be so much easier if he could _think_ straight.

Matt waved a hand around, drowning in a haze of carbon dioxide. He wheezed something that didn't even sound human anymore… it sounded more like animal. He panted with increased intensity, but his lungs refused to expand any further. A stuttering choke slipped passed his lips.

Oh, terrific.

Matt's hand hit the wall, searching for the button responsible to stabilize the air pressure. He had done this so many times before… now, where was it… where was it?

The space station groaned something painful… thuds pounded from the ceiling and walls. There was a rumbling from somewhere deep inside of it. The walls quivered.

The emergency systems would not shut up. Red things blinked on the wall panel, doing everything in their power to remind Matt just how much peril he was in.

Matt was having trouble seeing. His vision was growing dark. Blur, fade… blur, fade.

Everything was going black. Matt's eyes flickered closed. He was about to dip into unconsciousness… in the worst time in human comprehension.

Matt's hand slid down the wall… knocking into stray buttons and gauges like some kind of bumbling drunk… a few of them beeping upon contact. It felt like he was falling asleep. Matt shook his head to fight it off. He came back awake… but only for a moment.

Black. Everything was black. His eyesight was out. But he could still feel around.

Matt's finger met with a small button that emitted a _beep_ when pressed. The cabin began to hiss.

That sounded familiar. That had to be it.

He _hoped_ that that was it.

Task two.

Matt raised an arm. The drowsiness kicked in harder. Matt turned a knob on the wall to the left, causing the airlock to produce a lighter hiss this time. It chorused together with the air pressure hissing along with it.

An electronic scale that read OXYGEN LEVEL blinked on the wall. A needle beside the scale rose faster.

_0%. 10%. 40%. 70%._

The hissing then stopped. The alarms on the station stopped screeching… and there was a glorious silence. There was air in the cabin, now.

Matt was afraid that he couldn't shake it off one more time. Life was leaving him. The fringes of his body stung cold and hard. A dark comfort embraced him, beginning to silence the distress he was experiencing, and it did not let go of its conclusive grip.

Matt felt around for his neck, touching the locks his helmet… wondering if he could do it.

His fingers made odd shapes. They dug at the locks, unable to perform the task of just unhooking the latches as Matt was tipping over the ledge of death.

One click… two clicks, it was off.

Matt pulled the helmet off.

He inhaled.

Air.

It hurt it first, but along with it came the wonderful spurt of life shooting through everything inside of him. It was hard to get his lungs to work. They were tired and didn't want to. Matt forced in another breath. Another one.

His surroundings slowly came back into focus… the cabin, buttons, gauges. Everything grew sharper from a hazy blur.

Matt closed his eyes. He leaned in, resting his forehead on the wall in front of him. He stayed there on that wall… sucking in oxygen as if it was all just for him.

The Earth turned silently below out the porthole window. There was a certain peace that radiated inside of the airlock that excelled all others that Matt had known.

His body rotated in zero g. Matt rose his hand to the wall, placing it there to hold still.

_Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat._

Matt held his eyes shut. For a moment, there was some brief reassurance that ran through his mind that everything now was going to be alright. He took his time breathing—and coughed.

Matt's helmet floated within the airlock. It turned upside-down… drifting aimlessly like a glassy planet.

Matt's eyes pried open, exhausted. He stared down at the cabin floor... and his mind went somewhere else.

He was alive.

His plan had worked.

Matt stared at nothing. And then… after a moment… he did something that even somewhat surprised himself.

He smiled.

It was a small, triumphant twitch across his face. He couldn't believe that he had just gotten out of that one. You think that was a close enough shave?

Matt then hung his head, a wider grin breaking through his face. He chortled, his eyes pierced shut.

He found everything that had just happened funny.

He was that close to death. And it was at some cosmic, _ridiculous_ level at how narrowly he had just escaped from it. This was all too elaborate for it to be just an accident. It was all too... too perfect.

He almost wanted burst into communications and say, _"Houston, was that all just a huge joke?"_

And then—out of the abundance of loneliness and silence, Matt keeled over and pressed his head against the airlock wall, exploding into a laughing fit. The earth outside the window turned, just as it always did.

It watched the commander from a far distance.

Matt couldn't help it. He laughed and he laughed, and he couldn't hear his voice anymore, because this whole ordeal was so insane! The scenario played in his head... shouting at Mission Control as his eyes welled up...

"_Houston, are you TRYING to kill me?!_ _Did you set this whole thing up because everyone down there was tired of my incessant RAMBLING? I know that I talk a lot, but I didn't think it was that bad! Oh, that was hysterical, Houston! Really hysterical… over_."

Matt pulled his head up from the wall, and he smiled somewhere into the lights of the cabin.

This would be one sick prank.

Matt chuckled again, snapping out of it. He straightened himself out, but then he coughed again.

Again.

Matt reeled forward in pain as something ripped through him. It felt like a piece of his side had just been pulled out.

His breath was cut short. It was getting hard to breathe again.

Matt pushed himself away from the wall. He was lightheaded. Why?

Matt quickly glanced up at his hands. His fingers couldn't keep still… they quivered, his bones ringing like a large bell that had been struck.

He looked at his hands in some kind of halfhearted daze. Darkness crept up inside of his eyes again, fading, seeing double.

Something was wrong.

Matt turned, his eyes beginning to fail again. His breaths were light whistles.

He didn't get it. The airlock was pressurized. The oxygen was on. Therefore, he should have been fine.

Why, _why_ was it still so hard to breathe?

And then, Matt lifted his head.

His eyes crept up like the sunrise, spreading light over the whole earth... like the way one's eyes look when they have a revelation. Matt's memory started to come back to him.

Something had hit him. Back there. When his psi levels plunged.

Matt then had a feeling he knew the problem.

He only hoped that he was wrong.

Matt let go of the wall. He remained, floating. He immediately began to remove the torso of his suit.

There were two pieces to the suit that screwed together. Matt pulled in his arms, undoing it from the inside.

He twisted his torso piece off, and it floated lifelessly off of his body, drifting across the cabin. It knocked into the wall, twirling elsewhere. Matt sharpened his eyes and shoved it away. A light flickered from inside the cabin.

Matt twirled around, seizing the lower half of his suit, and began to push it off. He twisted it back and forth, his legs pulling out from the inside.

Matt stole a glance up, and saw the upper half to his torso piece floating above his head. Matt grabbed it, and pulled in the suit piece down to his level to bring underneath examining eyes.

Matt twirled the torso piece around, flipping it over in mid-air. His backpack was now right-side up.

What he saw made him stop. His eyes cracked open wider, white.

Something indeed had hit him.

A large dent had jammed the inside of it, and his entire backpack had collapsed in. A jagged tear ran up alongside his Life Support Systems pack, like a knife to aluminum foil.

Whatever had hit him—had hit him good.

Matt's eyes scanned the backpack up and down … searching for something.

He found the zipper that opened it up.

Matt seized it, yanking it down. The zipper then followed his hand… running along the sides and the edges—twisting and turning along his EVA backpack. The zipper came to a dead end and halted to a stop.

A canister floated upward.

Matt stared at it… wheezing.

The canister was green, and it drifted upwards towards the ceiling. It bore a large, sharp dent as well... right where Matt had been socked in the back.

Matt reached up to grab it, and pulled it towards him, the small hose slithering along in zero g.

Upon closer inspection, Matt discovered that it was the canister that was responsible for maintaining the air pressure within his suit. Matt peered into the little gauge that sat on top of the can, and saw that the needle inside was resting at _0 psi_.

_0 psi._

Matt looked at it… something glossed over in his eyes. He gawked at that number. He just stared at it… as though he were expecting the can to suddenly speak up and give him some kind of explanation.

His air pressure.

His air pressure had plummeted too low.

That was why he still having trouble breathing. To an astronaut, air pressure… was just as important as oxygen.

A cold draft blew over Matt. That horrible voice inside of his head spoke again.

_I hope you've got a killer plan for this one, buddy._

It was a tone that didn't sound remotely close to humane.

Matt curled up. He was on the verge of a total blackout. He pulled in his legs. They stung and prickled… the same way one's does when they fall asleep. He lost all feeling in them.

Something was wrong. Really wrong.

The lights aboard the ISS were giving in. Flicker. Flicker. The walls rattled.

Matt's breathing was labored. It felt like somebody was strangling him. He heaved his breaths out, shutting his eyes, a ton of bricks sitting in his chest.

When one first learns to become an astronaut, they are sent to NASA's buoyancy center to train the body for extensive pressure, as well as a harsher environment. Matthew Kowalski remembered that day very clearly. It was emphasized to know just how important this condition was. Pieces of that day reverberated through him.

"_Symptoms…_"

Matt's eyelids were coming down…

"_Nausea, shortness of breath…_ _when air pressure fluctuates too suddenly…_"

Matt's lids closed.

"_Decreased motor activity… nitrogen bubbles… blood..._"

Matt opened his eyes… unable to see anything.

The lights decided to burst out. The airlock plunged into black, and Matt was just a silhouette floating in space. The porthole window let in a sliver of moonlight, calling Matt back to the dark realm outside that was only inches away from him.

The lights came back on, and they branded Matt's face with bright lights. He shut his eyes, and curled in in mid-orbit on the ISS.

"_Decompression sickness… terminal without prompt treatment._"

* * *

The ISS hummed calmly.

Every rivet inside of the space station purred mechanically, electricity running through it like the blood inside of someone's veins. It was waiting for something. It watched every corner of the space station, alert and ready. But it wasn't for Matt.

Matt Kowalski floated on the other end of the module and faced a long corridor. He sported a navy blue shirt and Khakis.

Matt stared ahead. It was dark. The walls of the space station stared back at him. It was a hard, cold stare, like they were trying to communicate something important. The temperature was falling with every progressive inch Matt took forward.

He headed onward, and descended down a long module of white, insulated walls, and unruly wires growing from them.

The whirring lights above Matt seared into his eyes. He squinted, his vision gradually unfocusing and refocusing.

He flopped his hand on a bar.

_Clink._

Matt stifled a grunt—clenching his jaw. He pulled himself forward, gliding parallel along the wall. His arms weighed a ton, but he had to ignore it.

There was nitrogen in his blood. He needed to fix it. He was 250 miles away from home… without a soul in sight for miles… with Decompression sickness. But there was a hyperbaric chamber down inside of the habitation module. Matt would have to go down there, and use it for oxygen therapy to save himself.

Matt could see the end of the module. It was so far away. It was like one of those dreams where you're going down a long hallway, but no matter how much you try to go forward, you never get any closer. You pull away… back and back… back towards the horrible thing that is coming after you.

Speaking of horrible things...

There was an overabundance of silence. He was alone with his thoughts. The cold voice decided that this would be a good time to return to him again. It spoke.

_It's inspiring in way, you refusing to give up._

Matt's eyeballs went up, irked.

Matt pulled himself forward, and slapped a hold of another steel bar. He brought himself another inch closer to the habitation module.

_Clink._

_Keep going,_ the voice said. _Keep fighting, Matt… you pretentious little big shot. The more you fight to survive, the more we're going to have a good time__… and__ I know how much you like to have a good time._

As Matt listened to this voice, he slowed his pace a little bit, and noticed something strange.

This voice sounded almost—but not quite… just like him.

The owner of the voice sounded like him… and to a degree, it even looked like him… almost like a long-lost brother or cousin that he rarely ever saw. But at the same time, he wasn't anything like the carefree, happy and charming guy that Matthew Kowalski naturally was. They were alike, but the opposite… like something he'd see in a mirror.

Matt could picture him. Matt's reflection would probably be standing before him… smiling… and maybe with darker five o'clock. He bared teeth like that of a dog that may, or may not bite you.

Matt pressed on, grabbing another bar.

_Clunk._

The lights above him whirred. Matt stole a glance up. They flickered and played around, sending some sort of cosmic Morse code to him through the space station.

Matt stared. They stopped.

What was that?

The Other Matt grinned. The next thing he said, was relatively off the wall.

_It's the Thing, Matt._

The Commander then stopped.

Matt closed his eyes. He tried to replay what he just heard in his head.

NASA didn't train him for this.

"What… _'thing?'_" he huffed.

Other Matt was silent. He let those words sink in a little bit before he continued. He spoke again... but this time, stifling some sort of giddiness.

_Why, don't you know, buddy?_ he said._ It's the Thing that lives up here. It saw you outside… when you came in here… all nice and cozy, thinking you were safe in here. But you know better, don't you, Matt? We all know better. You know you're going to die, and you know that no one will mourn you. Heh__… __no, not even the pretty medical engineer._

Matt grabbed another bar.

He glanced farther ahead. The habitation module was now in his sight. The lights down the module flickered like a lighthouse, beckoning its call to him.

He had to get down there.

Matt kept going. And Other Matt did the same.

_But the good thing is, it won't be long, now. Soon, It will speak with you. It will find you. You can't escape from it, pal. It's waiting. It's watching you right now, Matt. The coldest, darkest thing ever brought upon this universe. But the Thing will wait to come for you. It waits until Its victims are in despair. There is a difference between giving up hope, and despairing. Do you know what despair looks like, Matt? Have you ever seen a dead fish? Sure you have. You went fishing with your old man in the summer of '65. You remember. How its eyes are all flat and gray… with that sallow plea lost forever behind its gaping eyes. That's what despair looks like. The Thing loves despair. It's the coldest of all human emotions. It loves everything to be as dark and as cold as it can get. It feeds off of that stone-dead look in a person's eyes when they know that they don't have a ray of light to save them. Like with your situation._

Matt's face contorted a little as he slowly inch-wormed his way across the station.

Clearly, this voice was nuts.

And it was still talking.

_It will speak with you soon. And when it does, you're going to finally lose it. You are going to be completely at your wits end, screaming and begging to be taken home. And only then, It will come. It will come and save you, and take you away__… f__ar, far away from this horrible accident and bring you peace of mind, like nothing ever even happened. And the two of you will live here forever—drift together into incalculable depths for all eternity._

Matt finally lost his temper.

"Oh, shut up!" he said, and flashed the ceiling a glare. "There is no _thing_. This thing doesn't exist… and it certainly isn't coming for m—"

The lights dampened.

Matt stopped and looked up.

They faded back on again, reemerging from a world of black. They remained on.

Matt stared at them. The ISS systems were still faulty from getting pummeled with debris outside. It had to be coincidence.

It was the only logical explanation.

* * *

Matt reached the habitation module, and the hypobaric chamber was now in front of him. It was white, and just big enough to hold a body. It looked like a coffin. It lay upright against the wall, a safe haven for those afflicted with critical pressure fluctuations.

Matt extended an arm, reaching for the sliding hatch. It slid open, curling around the plastic pod.

He had never used this provision before during his career as an astronaut. But now he had to try and figure it out.

Matt searched the front for some kind of a knob, a button or a switch… something with a distinctive uniqueness.

There was a circular button on the side. It held the universal power emblem.

Matt stabbed his thumb into it. It glowed white, and something inside the chamber began to hum ominously. Matt slammed a palm down on the door hatch, and hauled it open. It glided sideways, and Matt slipped in.

He stayed in there... and eventually passed out only seven minutes afterward.


	4. Exploring

_August 28th, 2013  
Tranquility Module, 254.5 miles above Earth  
68° F  
41.0 psi  
Coordinates: __29__51'20.66" N, by 124__56'26.40" W__  
11:32 PM, United States EST_

* * *

If there's one truth about terror, it's that sometimes, one is able to hear the sound of it if you pay close enough attention. It only happens for a moment. So listen closely.

When a dog jumps out to bite you, you can hear the blare of horns. When you're deep underwater and swimming for the surface, those terrible, disembodied strings in your mind play as the uncertainty rises of whether or not you're going to make it.

So the next time you think that you hear it, pay attention. This is your body's way of letting you know that you know better than to tell yourself that you're scared for no reason.

Make no mistake. You aren't.

* * *

It was the blackest of blacks. Everything, was covered in it.

A small white dot rested in the middle of nowhere. The International Space Station. It glided along, searching the depths of space for something unimportant.

It floated over the earth. Quiet, still oceans gleamed up at it. A harmonious place for life to live. Anything that had the chance to live down there on earth took its home for granted.

The impact happened quickly.

A violent explosion split open the station, and shattered everything inside of it. The station broke apart, exploding into tiny, incalculable fractals.

They zipped and whined, soaring to the edge of the universe to notify it of his termination.

Matt awoke, jerking back to life.

He breathed in. Out. He glanced up to recall just where he was.

He was 250 miles away from home. In a hyperbaric chamber. On the International Space Station. This nightmare was still going on.

Matt exhaled, slower this time. He regained composure. There wasn't a problem breathing anymore. He felt fine.

The decompression sickness was gone.

But he decided to take it slow, for good measure.

Matt opened the sliding door, and it slid to the side. He let himself out, and gave himself a push off of his polyurethane coffin. As he floated off, a thought came back to his mind.

The radio. He had to get to the main radio in the _Unity_ module.

* * *

The _Unity_ module, was a little nook that held a HAM radio with enough frequencies to communicate with just about anyone. If Matt could get to it, he might have still had a chance at contacting Houston again.

Matt drifted down a corridor.

The lights buzzed and flickered. It was a depressing sound. It was like the station couldn't make up its mind whether or not to stay lit.

The wires on the walls slunk out and kicked up gold sparks. One slithered out for Matt, sputtering and coughing. He craned his neck to avoid it, and then glided past it.

Matt drifted up.

The space debris has pummeled most of everything on the station. It was nearly totaled.

Matt came up to a window where metal bits twirled away into the dark backdrop of space. Matt stopped himself, grabbed the porthole, and stared out it.

Out of the abyss of darkness, a vast collection of tiny, silver bits twirled away, performing silent acrobatics. The Japanese station, the Harmony module… all of it was gone… finding purpose someplace else. Matt watched them, drifting off into the unknown. They were all gone… and now, a new problem lay before him: the space station wasn't in one piece anymore.

Matt stared. Emotions conflicted in his eyes.

A familiar mode twinkled at him, winking him farewell. It was tiny. It was fleeting. It almost looked sad.

The _Unity_ module.

That... was the _Unity_ module.

Matt couldn't move. He stared.

He couldn't use the radio.

Without the radio—without the _Unity_ module—he could not contact anyone back on Earth. This was bad.

This was _very_ bad.

Matt snapped out of it and blinked. He pressed his thumb into his brow.

"Alright, what do we do now, Matt? What do we do…"

There had to be some way... _some way_ that he could use a HAM radio to try and reach Houston again. Matt thought long and hard, scanning over every possible alternative for a radio that he was aware of.

There were always HAM radios on the _Soyuz_, but they were both gone.

Matt stopped thinking. His eyebrow twitched.

Wait. One of the _Soyuzes_ was gone?

But… how…

And then it clicked.

Ryan.

Matt smiled. This realization was enough of a distraction to get his mind off of his current situation.

He peered out the porthole window. Nothing was out there except for the vast depths of space. Matt nodded.

"Good girl."

However, his smirk began to break apart when he remembered that he needed a ticket out of here, too. Both of the _Soyuzes_ were gone Which made getting back to Earth impossible.

And that, spelled disaster.

If Matt couldn't use a _Soyuz_ to get back to Earth, he'd need to find a different way.

Matt gaze's roamed outside the porthole window. He thought.

It was like being on a sinking ship without an lifeboats left. With all of the lifeboats on this station gone, and/or rendered useless, there was nothing else on this station that could carry him-

And then Matt's eyes tore wide open… a thought exploded in his mind... the cogs turned…

Wait a minute, _wait a minute_…

There was another lifeboat!

The crew prior to _Explorer_ had the mission of assembling an escape pod to the space station. The Dragon V2. It was SpaceX's newest invention. Matt had forgotten all about it.

In short, SpaceX was like a distant cousin of NASA. They had a pretty good future, despite them being amateurs in space exploration. They had designed the Dragon with a high frequency radio, which was crucial to Matt, and the pod was built to carry people back to Earth.

However, it was still brand new. No one had ever used it before. Including Matt. But it was his only shot. There were no other lifeboats on this station to save him, and he had to find out where this pod was docked at.

It was his only hope.

Matt looked up, and something glinted in his eyes. He couldn't believe that forgot all about it. He had just sent Ryan to _Tiangong_ for nothing.

But she was leaving breadcrumb trails. Each one that he found made Matt feel more confident about her finding a way out of here. She had been through tougher things in life. She had guts that she didn't know about yet. Matt had a feeling… just like how he had a bad feeling about this mission… that somehow, someway… Ryan was going to be alright.

However, coming back to him, all Matt knew was that he was a man on a mission, now:

Find the Dragon pod.

No matter what happened.

* * *

Matt drifted through countless corridors.

He kept moving. He pushed himself forward, but with something on his mind: he had no space suit.

Without a space suit, he was at a higher risk for exposure to space.

Which was something to consider, since the space debris outside had ripped through the station like tin foil, and now any hatch he came across could either be perfectly fine to open... _or_ it could throw him back into the vacuum of space, and send him to his icy grave faster than he could blink.

He had to pick and choose his doors wisely, now.

Matt pushed himself along the side of the walls. As he came into the dining area on the station, scrap heaps and baggage floated around. The debris had collided with other modules on it. It was a miracle parts of it were still intact. It was like the further Matt explored, the more shaken up the station was. Things that had been meticulously packed for him and his crew were now drifting aimlessly in zero g. Air-tight dried food, books, toothpaste packets, clothes in zip liners.

Matt slowed his pace, coming to a fork in the hallway. He stopped to look around. The only options he had to go were either left, right, or forward. He had no idea what his odds were of picking a safe corridor. Matt looked around for the arrows that directed astronauts where each module led. Matt spotted a yellow arrow ahead which read _COL_.

The _Columbia_ module… where he needed to go.

Matt kept straight, and pushed himself forward.

The lights grew dimmer and dimmer. The lights flickered, trying to guide him, but they died out together as Matt went forward, and he slipped into silken darkness all around him.

Matt's eyes widened to adjust. He didn't focus on the dark.

Matt slowed down to stop. He came to another fork in the station.

There were only two options this time. Left, or forward. The right corridor had debris blocking its entryway. It was impossible to read any of the arrows, now. The only light was the small blue glow of a cracked computer screen that was nestled somewhere deep inside of the corridor.

This was ludicrous. He felt like he was on a game show and should win something because of this. Welcome to the Choose-Your-Doors-Wisely game. Where the very next door you choose, your could spontaneously blow up into space fodder.

Matt stared down the corridor in front of him.

"Let's try door number one."

He placed his hands on each side of the wall next to him, and pushed himself forward, taking off into the hallway.

The rest of the station drifted further behind him. As he went in deeper, the walls became narrower. Smaller. It was getting harder to see his hands in front of him.

Matt felt around on the walls, wondering where the bars had gone to help him move forward. He felt a steel object, and he pushed himself forward.

It was also colder in here. Not a good sign.

A clunk rattled the wall. Matt pushed onward and floated down through corridor.

The same clunk again. Louder.

Matt made a half-turn as he held the current bar on the wall. He stopped.

Something else had stopped as well.

Matt stared.

He waited.

He lingered.

The black hallway stared back.

Something else waited, too.

Matt listened.

Something was here.

The noise had stopped.

Matt blinked confusedly and looked around… and then looked back at the way he had come from again. He slowly turned away to keep heading forward.

Clunk.

Matt audibly breathed in.

He spun around, his eyes deliberately wider.

The hallway behind him stared back.

Matt froze. He searched the hallway.

He was breathing a little too fast.

Something was following him.

And then… he heard it. The sound of terror. A string. One, solitary string.

And then it went away.

Almost as if it could read minds, It went away as well.

Matt didn't move. He stared into the hallway for several long moments, but he heard nothing else. He dared to think that the voice in his head would start acting up. But it didn't.

Matt pulled his eyes away from the corridor. It felt like he was ripping away all certainty as he turned.

He stopped. He hung his head to shake it off, and then slowly kept going down the corridor.


End file.
